Across District Lines: Surrogate Representation in the U.S. House

• In Event: Geography and Representation

Abstract

While geographic based representation for members of the United States House of Representatives is constitutionally mandated, the “lines” of contemporary American politics have become blurred. Citizens reach out to members of Congress from outside their district, donate to candidates and incumbents from around the country, and follow legislators on popular social media platforms despite having no formal, electoral, or territorial relationship with them. The representation of Americans by legislators living outside their congressional district, or surrogate representation, is an understudied phenomenon in American political representation. In this paper, I offer a psychological theory of political representation where legislators make group-based representative claims that are accepted by citizens across political boundaries—thus facilitating surrogate representation. Using campaign contribution data to members of the U.S. House from 2012-2018, I demonstrate that surrogate representatives see significantly larger portion of their total campaign contributions coming from outside their congressional district even when controlling for the member’s seniority, leadership status, and district wealth. Additionally, this work shows that when individuals contribute to out-of-district candidates, they are more likely to contribute to candidates who are members of the same race or gender. The evidence presented here challenges the standard account of political representation in American politics and calls for a more robust examination of surrogate representation in contemporary politics.

Author

• Tyler Steelman, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill